The invention relates to soil aerating devices and, more particularly, to soil aerating devices including one or more rotatable members or cylindrical drums carrying core-forming elements or tines.
Soil aerating devices are commonly used for aerating golf course greens, fairways, and tees, playing fields, lawns and the like. One type of such devices includes one or more rotatable members or cylindrical drums carrying a plurality of core-forming elements or tines which penetrate through the turf to remove plugs or cores of grass and soil as the drum is rolled over the surface to be aerated.
It is often desirable to collect these cores for disposal at another location. This can be accomplished by arranging the tines and the drum so that the cores are deposited and collected in the interior of the drum, in which case the drum usually is provided with some sort of access door to facilitate removal of the cores. Such a door can form part of the peripheral wall of the drum and be arranged to act as a trap door so that the cores can be conveniently dumped from the drum. The dumping operation can be expedited by providing a conveniently accessible means for locking the drum against rotation in the desired rotational position for opening the door to dump the cores and for selectively moving a latch mechanism releasably holding the door in the closed position to an unlatching position.
Examples of prior art constructions for soil aerating devices of this general type are disclosed in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.
______________________________________ Dedoes 3,643,746 issued February 22, 1972 Dedoes 3,756,203 issued September 4, 1973 Angeski 3,881,553 issued May 6, 1975 ______________________________________
Attention is directed to Boxrud U.S. Pat. No. 3,264,877, issued Aug. 9, 1966, which discloses a soil sampling device employing a hollow cylindrical drum, hollow soil probes arranged to deposit cores of soil inside the drum and an access door in one end wall of the drum through which the collected soil is removed.